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Stade Français 13 Ulster 10: Ulster hopes come to grief

POOL One of the Heineken Cup clings stubbornly to form. Stade Français, unbeaten at home but winless on the road, eventually edged clear of an Ulster side with an identical record, desperately needing to reverse the trend to stay in the tournament. However, once more the travelling team in this pool forgot to pack their sea-legs.

Stade now face Leicester at Welford Road on Friday in a game which should decide the pool, but for Ulster it’s set to be yet another premature end to a European campaign.

Since South African Alan Solomons took the reins of the province back in 2001, his side have failed on three separate occasions to edge past the pool stages, and a fourth failure is on the way.

Overall it was one of the Heineken Cup’s more ordinary games with defences on top and handling errors ruining any momentum that had been built up.